For the record, in the '50s, Ray wrote some stories, most notably in "The Martian Chronicles" and "Fahrenheit 451," suggesting the world would end in nuclear war. Some twenty years later he said he no longer believed that was the case, and hasn't believed in the end of the world since.

In the late forties and fifties we, as children, were constantly bombared with scarry warnings that a nuclear war was immanent and that we had to practice "the drill" - hear the wailing siren, drop and cover, get under something like your desk. The facts are that if a nuclear bomb had been set off, none of that would have much mattered. Look at the result of the Chernoble accident. That environment of fear gave birth to many of Ray's stories from the time.

Today we are in a similar situation. The government is constantly scaring us with warnings of terrorist attacks and the possibility of great losses due to nucelar bombs or biological weapons being smuggled into areas of high population and set off by those who would send us to the next life and claim their seven virgins for the task.

Since fate has given me the life I have led and survival of the cold war, I would remind the present generation not to worry too much about things that are out of your control. Live each day as if it were your last. The summation of such a life has a very sweet rememberance like a fine wine grown complex and very flavorful with age.

I think those are wise closing comments, but remember that in "Something This Way Comes" you could not run from Mr. Dark. You had to confront his evil with your goodness. Pretending evil will go away or that it doesn't exist is a historically risky paradigm.